India enters scrap-age, gets 18,000 crore bus boost – Times of India

NEW DELHI: The government on Monday announced the rollout of the voluntary vehicle scrapping policy to phase out old and unfit vehicles. In her budget speech, FM Nirmala Sitharaman also said a Rs 18,000 crore scheme will be launched for a city bus system to increase the availability of public transport in urban areas.
Sitharaman said the details of the voluntary vehicle scrapping policy for commercial vehicles older than 15 years and over private vehicles older than 20 years would be announced by the road transport ministry.
Welcoming the decision, Union transport minister Nitin Gadkari said around 17 lakh commercial vehicles are older than 15 years and do not have valid fitness certificates and similarly there are about 51 lakh private vehicles that are more than 20 years old.

“All those who will retire their old vehicles are expected to buy new ones running on cleaner fuel. Older vehicles are 12 times more polluting than new vehicles. Moreover, the new vehicles will come with more safety features, which have been made mandatory. This policy will bring nearly Rs 10,000 crore investment and create nearly 50,000 new jobs,” he said.

The policy linked to a stricter vehicle fitness regime is likely to be rolled out from April 2022. Officials said vehicles that fail to get the fitness test certificate in a fully automated testing facility will have to be scrapped. Such vehicles will also be automatically deregistered from the central database of all registered vehicles. Driving such unregistered vehicles will attract stiff penalties and the vehicles would be impounded.

Earlier, giving details of the plan to improve the city bus transport system, the FM said the new scheme will facilitate the deployment of innovative public private partnership models to enable private sector players to finance, acquire, operate and maintain over 20,000 buses. “The scheme will boost the automobile sector, provide a fillip to economic growth, create employment opportunities for our youth, and enhance ease of mobility for urban residents,” she said.